If you’re a chef or cookbook author in the Hudson Valley and would like to be featured in Chef Spotlight, email foodanddrink@poughkeepsiejournal.com with a user-friendly recipe, a photograph of yourself and the finished dish (hi-resolution jpegs, please), and information about yourself or place of business; also visit www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/recipe, where you can fill out a form online

Shannon Aubin, left to right, Adrienne Ramos and Carla Ramos are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of Sofregít. / October Dusk Photography/Courtesy photo

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Great ideas are sometimes born from simple, repetitive tasks. It can start with someone saying, “There has got to be an easier way.”

Many meals start with a lot of time spent chopping onion, celery and carrots. This basic combination is called mirepoix. Every cuisine has a composition of aromatics that creates its characteristic flavor medley. In Puerto Rico, it is called sofrito. In Spain, it is called sofregit. The blending of the two food cultures, and a family with a robust love of good food, have taken a basic food concept and brought it to home kitchens of the Hudson Valley.

Carla Ramos and her daughter-in-law Adrienne Ramos spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing sofrito for family meals. They often bantered about the idea of packaging and selling this flavoring base. They are now celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of Sofregít. They have three cooking bases available for purchase at Adams Fairacre Farms: Green, Red and Hot Flash. Green is a combination of green bell peppers, onions, aji dulce peppers, garlic, culantro and cilantro. Red is a fuller flavored variation of the Green. It has more garlic and adds tomatoes to the flavor profile. Hot Flash adds habanero peppers to the base to add a bit more sweetness and a fair amount of heat.

Simplicity is the key here; instead of spending time chopping, simply add one of the Sofregít bases in the pan and sauté before adding the remaining components of a dish. Sofregít also offers Herbalicious Mayo, a blend of mayonnaise and their proprietary cooking base, and Butta Baby, a compound butter in a tub.

The cooking bases have unlimited uses — the ingredients are fresh — and do not contain salt, oil or artificial ingredients. Vegetables and herbs used in the cooking bases are sourced locally as much as possible, the owners said.

“Pastelillos is the name of the ever delectable meat patty. That is what they are called in Puerto Rico and from the generations of Puerto Ricans here in the States,” Carla Ramos writes at http://sofregitmama.blogspot.com. “You may also know them as empanadas. ...

Pastelillos

Makes approximately 10 pastelillos

For the pastry:

1/2 cup cold water

1 egg

1 egg white

1 teaspoon vinegar

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons canola oil

Note: Goya empanada disks can be substituted for the homemade pastry. They can be found in the frozen food section of many local grocery stores.

For the filling:

3 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons Sofregít cooking base (your choice)

1 pound lean ground beef

2 tablespoons sliced green olives

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

Salt and black pepper, to taste

To prepare the dough: Beat the water, egg, egg white and vinegar together in a bowl and set aside. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the canola oil and stir together. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the egg mixture into the center. Using a fork, pull the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and work until the dough begins to come together.

Knead the dough together on a lightly floured surface; just until a smooth dough is formed. Flatten the dough into a 1-inch-thick disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about one hour. If making the dough in advance, the dough can be wrapped well and frozen.

To prepare the filling: Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the Sofregít cooking base and sauté for a minute or two. Add the ground beef, olives, salt and black pepper to the pan. Cook until the beef is nicely browned. Reduce the heat to low and add the tomato sauce to the beef mixture. Stir together and simmer for about 10 minutes, covered, to slightly reduce. Cool the mixture slightly before assembling the pastelillos.

To assemble: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 10, 6-inch rounds. Fill the center of each round with about 1 tablespoon of cooled meat mixture. Fold the dough in half to cover the filling and seal the edges of the “half-moon” shape. This can be accomplished by either sealing with the tines of a fork or by rolling or pleating the pastry closed. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pastry is nicely browned.

Alternatively, the pastelillos can be pan fried in hot oil for 3 to 5 minutes.